


Destiny's a Bitch

by Delia_Maguire



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Decisions, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Feelings, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Bad at Communicating, Good Parent Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Jaskier | Dandelion Has Feelings, Jaskier | Dandelion Needs a Hug, M/M, Making Up, Minor Original Character(s), Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, POV Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, POV Jaskier | Dandelion, Pining, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species, Roach and Ciri Share the Only Brain Cell, Roach is So Done (The Witcher)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22450471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delia_Maguire/pseuds/Delia_Maguire
Summary: Queen Calanthe had always hated fairy tales.Ciri on the other hand, had always loved them. The thrill of fate, the promise of destiny, the tragedy of a love meant to be! - Had captivated her since her youngest years.So, when she finds out Geralt is the leading role of his own “tragic romance;” well, she really can't be expected not to meddle.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 25
Kudos: 272





	1. The Question

**Author's Note:**

> Me, flying into this with only my knowledge of the show and three scenes of Wild Hunt I watched over my boyfriend's shoulder: YEET

“So…” Ciri began carefully, crossing her hands together in front of her and leaning back in a stiff stretch just a little too adjacent to casual as she drew the fateful word out. Well, carefully might really have been too strong of a word here. If she were being careful she wouldn’t have brought it up at all. If she were being careful she would have just avoided the conversation entirely; and yet, the words pressed behind her teeth and fought for their freedom with every minute of everlasting silence passing. 

They were in a grove of sorts, her and the Witcher that was. Though here again, she might be using too strong of a word. The few sparse saplings that shielded them from the late winter’s reaching claws were barely a grove. More akin to a pile of twigs that happened to be standing upright or a particularly unruly thicket than anything like a real shelter, they were no more a woods than she was a princess. With no castle, nore even a country now, to rule over how could anyone be considered king? Equally so, the lack of absolutely anything to set the charred and wretched little brushes of mangled growth apart from the rest of the barren landscape robbed it of its title. 

Titles held no place in this shadow of a world. There were just things, and people, and plants all trying to survive in the shrinking lifeboat of rubble and none was any better than the other for what they had been before. 

She was starting to doubt if there even ever had been a _Before_ or if it had all been a grand illusion concocted by her own troubled mind to ease the suffering of what they called life now.

“Hmm.” Geralt grunted uncommentablely from where he sat a stone toss away prodding at a dying fire with a twig. The small flame flickered and wavered dangerously in the iron toothed breeze, flitting nervously in the claws of the cold and shrinking back against the roaring wind as it tore cruelly over the _we’lljustcallitagrove._ The gnarled branch did nothing to revive it, Geralt’s pointed jabs only seeming to send the weak little coals flying across the withered grass where they smoldered pathetically into cold lumps of blackened worthlessness.

Ciri took it as a sign to continue, it was about what passed for one nowadays or as close as anything got to it anyways. It was hard to tell sometimes if _hmm_ meant _I’m listening_ or _shut_ _it._ She opened her mouth to continue on anyway but just found herself closing it again as an ineloquent uh is all she ended up coming up with. Her eyebrows furrowed in irritation as she struggled with the words in her head; rearranged, started to speak, then trading all their places all over again in search of something better. There really was just no good way to ask this she could think of.

Ciri inhaled, closing her eyes and she drew the words up in her chest and held them there for a last moment of indecision - one last chance to back out - before she let the question that had been burning inside her since she’d met the Witcher in the woods all those months ago spill out in a tumble. “Where’s the bard?” She nearly snapped, rushing the entire sentence out in one breath as if it were all just one word rather than three unto themselves.

There. She did it. 

Geralt stopped his incessant stoking, maybe giving the poor overworked little flame a chance to actually burn. His expression remained unchanged but Ciri couldn’t bring up a single moment in all their travels that it had been anything but a stoic mask of utter disinterest and occasional disdain, so that was really nothing to go on. Until finally, “What bard?”

Ciri nearly groaned. This was really how it was gonna be, huh? This was the great Geralt of Rivia come from the gates of destiny itself to save her? Wonderful. 

She thought about waiting, hoping Geralt would grow bored of this game before her patience ran out but she knew it was a vain hope before she even began. While the tales and stories that preceded the Witcher tended to focus on his great feats of valor and wondrous victories against easily felled foes that had proved too great for any other, far less often sung of in the great ballads of the White Wolf was his insurmountable stubbornness. Though she believed it could be a legend all to itself.

With a barely contained roll of her eyes sitting just at the end of the slipping leash of her self-control, she caved. “You know the _humble bard,_ ” she elaborated in a sigh. “Think they, like, broke his lute or something like that?” She tried to recall the all too popular song and failed, waving her hand vaguely through the air before her as she searched for words she hadn’t bothered to memorize. “ _And kicked in my teeth!”_ She finally recalled with a bit more clarity, the end of the florid clusters of lyrics always had seemed to stick with her better than anything that came before. That was where the important stuff always happened anyway, like teeth kicking.

“He didn’t get his teeth kicked in.” Geralt interjected pointedly.

Ciri grinned. There was a bard. He still had all his teeth. They were making progress. 

“They did break his lute though?” She pushed on eagerly, not noticing she was leaning forward on her heels until she knocked herself off balance and had to slam her palm into the ground to keep from eating the scrappy undergrowth. 

Geralt wordlessly resumed his callous abuse of the measly piles of barely sparking coals, shoving and dragging the fading embers until Ciri was sure they would go out entirely. “Yes.” He finally answered, simple and short but far more answer than she thought she’d get.

“So then…?” Ciri pushed onwards with the small dose of encouragement, moving her gaze with a pointed slowness over their clearly bard-less camp in hopes of steering the conversation back to her original question. 

All she received for her efforts was silence, the only sound that dared to breach the cold night the unforgiving wind whipping vengefully over the blameless branches of the tattered scrubs, resilient little things they were. Geralt’s gaze remained firmly fixed on his work, the faint glow of the dying flame illuminating his unreadable expression in flickering bursts whose harsh shadows cast more in darkness than in light. His eyes, though nearly luminous themselves, she could not see at all.

“Oh…” Ciri started with a gasp. A sense of bland realization bled into her veins as she let her gaze fall back to her hands in her lap, a feeling as though someone had reached into her and replaced her beating heart with one of stone settling heavily in her chest. “I’m sorry I-” She continued, suddenly wishing she hadn’t brought it up at all. The war… It had taken so much from so many.

“He’s not dead.” Geralt corrected before she could go on, giving a particularly ungentle poke to the weakling of a fire. It sputtered in protest and dwindled for a tense moment; but then, the angry sparks sent flying by the prod crackled vengefully against the long-dead splinters and miraculously - Caught.

However, soon after came a doubtful, “Hmm.” and Ciri wondered exactly how much time she had missed the bard by. 

Time or not, now that Ciri was assured tragedy had not fallen she couldn’t help but feel a little, well, _annoyed_. Her time in inns and taverns had been sparse at best, too risky a place for a princess to stay for any longer than a few moments at a time but even she had heard tell of the Witcher and the bard. The White Wolf and his loyal barker. The stories of their adventures spread across the land from Temeria to Cintra and she would be lying if she said she hadn’t tied the two together in her head.

To end up with only one of them really just felt like she was getting ripped off. 

Still though, this particular line of questioning was clearly getting her nowhere. Geralt either didn’t want to talk about where his companion had gone or, evidently, didn’t know. It was time to change tactics. 

Ciri paused, considering her options for a moment with a quiet hum of concentration before she tried again. “What’s his name?” She finally asked, scooching forward a bit to draw nearer the fitful blaze slowly growing steady in the breeze. It was an easy enough question, one she really didn’t expect to gain anything from. Just a foot jammed in the door of conversation before it could slam closed for good.

Geralt failed to answer once more, truly an unsurprising course of action at this point. It seemed to be his go-to. His focus was a single-minded one, his attention and adoration intently set on that pathetic little excuse for a fire as if it were all there were to the world. 

The flame, of course, seemed oblivious to his infatuation as most people’s infatuations are usually painfully so. Nevertheless, the few but bold sparks that had valiantly caught the ice-dried scrap of a branch held their own bravely against the cold and the white-tipped tongues of fire crawled slowly towards the stars. The steady flame only grew as Geralt finally leaned back and placed his instrument of torture to the side, finally letting it rest as it crackled into a merry blaze as if just to spite the night pressing in on them. 

The fire roared warmly, bright sparks spitting up to challenge the dark and hanging caught in the blackness like stars fallen from their place in the sky. The orange glow of life danced across the Witcher’s face in a wavering tide, casting away the shadows its predecessor had bathed him in and revealing every tired line and old scar painted there. Still he did not speak. 

Ciri huffed quietly under her breath and scowled at the ground, casting her angry glare down upon the withered grass as though it had been the one to rob her of the fun she felt she’d been promised rather than Geralt doing something ridiculous along the way - Which she had determined, if her months of travel with the man was anything to go by, was an incredibly likely reason for this unexpected little hangup. 

Resignedly, she drug herself closer to the fire and drew her hands from where she kept them tucked safely away in her cloak to hold them before the flame. The welcome blaze warmed her, brought a bit of feeling trickling back into her ice-numbed body and soothed away some of the ache buried in her bones; but it simply wasn’t enough. The ache remained, the overwhelming silence of the war-ravaged land buzzing in her ears and settling under her skin like a disease.

It was cold and it was quiet. So, so quiet.

Too quiet for there to be anything else.

“He calls himself Jaskier.” Geralt’s graveling voice broke the silence, his words shattering through the quiet like a sledgehammer being brought down on a sheet of glass. It threw shards through the wind, slicing through the frigid air on bladed edges and catching in the trees around them to hang, ringing in the air for an eternity after.

It was like a bubble had been popped. Like something had been changed. Like… 

(Like there could finally be something _else.)_

Ciri considered this new tidbit for a quiet moment; and all at once a warm, once familiar feeling bubbled up in her chest. It matched the heat of the flame crawling down from her fingertips to stretch into her veins and chased the chill from her, smoldering in her belly and spreading out from there until it was tingling in the very tips of her toes and bursting to be let out. 

A broken chuckle finally crested her lips, arid with disuse and cracking like the stiff limbs of a forgotten wooden soldier splintering as an uncareful child tried to jerk it into action. It didn’t stop, like a dam inside her had broke and now that the water of laughter was flowing it could never be stopped again. The only words she could get out around it, nearly breathless and gasping for air were a wheezed, “You mean he actually named himself after a _flower?”_


	2. A Problem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hated how chapter 2 was, so I re-uploaded with new content :)

“Play something for me bard.” The woman whispered softly, the words falling from her lips as scarlet as the folds of fabric slipping from her shoulder. She leaned in, the sharp bite of her well kept nails pin-pricking across his chest so the sentence was naught but a whisper against his skin, as hot as a dragon’s- 

_ Focus, Jaskier.  _

Sing something, he could do that. Easy. “The fairer sex, they often call it,” Jaskier started in a low breath, a charming grin carrying the words as he re-centered himself on the moment. Not far off on some mountain. Not where dragons lie and words hung in the air of memory for years after, their echo still as loud as the day they were uttered. “But her love’s as-” He continued silkily but his bed mate pulled back, pouting perturbedly and he let his voice fall to nothing, confused. Women usually loved that one. Who was naught to swoon at his tragic tales of love and loss? 

Well, not him certainly; but that was entirely beside the point. 

“I’ve heard that one before.” The girl, Elena..? Was that what she had called herself?- complained poutily and leaned back, perching petulantly atop his stomach to glare unhappily down at the man. Waving swashes of raven hair fell around her sloping shoulders in cascading sheets, thick and full as her soft lips currently parted gently in her temperamental pout. Pale skin and striking eyes, all the fire and beauty of the storms he hearkened too in his ballads of longing, he should have been able to sing about her.

“Um-” He stuttered out unintelligibly. That would surely win her.

Elena (Or maybe it was Elizabeth?) huffed, soft lips hardening in an irritated frown as she hauled the slipping strap of her elegant dress back up the arch of her shoulder, silken fabric sliding angrily against light-dappled skin. The shadows of the lamplight played across her physique, dramatic and intimate, the sloping angles of her deep collar bones catching in the darkness and the full flush of her delicate features bathed in the light, a beautiful contrast. 

“Er, well-” He tried again, scrambling to compose his thoughts into something as beautiful as the picture before him and coming up unbelievably blank, not a word to his name. 

A bard who couldn’t come up with a song. The irony was nauseating. 

Though not nearly as nauseating as the fact that it had been this way for months now - or perhaps it had been longer. He couldn’t write a word, his mind as empty as a hayfield on a winter’s day, dead and drying grass caught in the icy claws of the cold’s deathly grasp with naught a whisper of life to be caught on the merciless wind. His talent, his passion, his saving grace - Gone! Alas, his muse, a fickle creature at best, had abandoned him. He was naught for inspiration, lost for words, and lacking a tune to put them to had he had them. It was as though the well of creativity had simply dried up, leaving him picking out tuneless melodies and stringing together words that just didn’t fit.

All in all, he was well and truly fucked.

“If I am truly so uninspiring-” Elizabeth or whatever her name had been sniped, pressing angry hands into his chest to push herself up and leaving the image of her gaudy rings printed into his skin in her wake.

“Of course not, my darling, my um...” Jaskier scrambled to gain traction, but his words slipped from his grasp like the scrabbling paws of a declawed kitten and he earned nothing but an unimpressed glare for his efforts. He recoiled from the heated look with a wince like a sour note had been strum along his heartstrings, increasingly aware of the fact that he was a few unfinished analogies from talking his way right out of a free inn room. “Well, you see-” He floundered, mind reaching and coming up empty. There was nothing. Nothing! Not a tune to be sung, not even a romantic poem could he bring to his lead tongue; just a few romantic words set to something that looked vaguely like a tune would’ve been enough. Yet, he had _ nothing _ .

From across the room, his near-empty bag of coins glared at him where it lay roped to the waist of his pants. Ah, that’s where they had ended up. Lovely, if he got kicked out now at least he would be leaving with those and that was more than he could say for some of his less successful endeavors.

His shirt was a different story but one had to appreciate the small mercies in life. He’d really liked that shirt too...

“Couldn’t I interest you in better uses for my mouth?” He asked with all the sweetness of a snake, words falling from his lips as smooth as the silk fabric pressed between his hips and her thighs. His court-room smile slipped across his face, honey coated and - if he did say so himself - irresistible. Capricious though his elusive muse may be, he had his ways of reigniting her and he would not be giving up the night just yet.

* * *

Evidentially, he could not interest the fair lady in any better uses for his mouth, numerous though they may be.

Thus, here Jaskier found himself, being shoved out of his temporary bed with one leg shoved in his pants as he held his lute far above his head to keep his beloved instrument clear of harm’s way. He stumbled past the doorway and into the hall beyond, only thankful it was vacant for the time being as he hurriedly yanked his other ankle past the cuff of his pants leg and hauled the waistline back into the realm of decency. 

“Could you at least-?” Jaskier called back, still dragging his uncomfortably crooked pants back where they belonged, but a pair of hands shoved a crumpled mess of fabric roughly into his bared chest before he could finish. “Thanks.” He concluded huffily but the heavy slam of wood into wood sliced through the parting words and he was left giving his less-than-thankful comment to unfeeling oak. Ah well, more compassionate than some of his companions he supposed.

His chest unhelpfully constricted in a weird, twisted sort of way and he hurriedly un-supposed that, pushing the thought from his mind as quickly as it had came.

Before he could do much else, a door creaked, the low moan of old wood exploding in the silence of the empty hall like a bomb had gone off. Jaskier whipped around, his gaze falling on the startled eyes of a woman peering around the corner of her own room, hazel orbs frozen in the grip of being caught. 

“Everythings fine here.” Jaskier summarized as smoothly as one standing half-naked in the middle of a public hallway could, putting a hand out to lean against the hall, but he mis-aimed, sending his hand falling through empty air and his body stumbling after it. The woman glared and slammed the door shut. 

Letting a heavy breath of air sigh through his body as the sound faded in the quiet hall, Jaskier set his hands to sorting out the tangled ball of silk that’d been shoved into his chest and, much less easily, his mind to the problem at hand. (And no, the problem was not the way his heart still pathetically fluttered at something as stupid as a wayward train of thought. That was for another day, perhaps sometime after the end of life as the world knew it - Though with the war waging just outside every smoke-charged window that may be sooner than he’d like to think.) 

He’d just un-wooed himself right out of a place to sleep, was the present problem. Stubbornly steering his insubordinate thoughts back to the issue at hand, Jaskier tried to collect the current options as he fished around in the depths of fabric for his left sleeve, lost somewhere past the valleys of deep blue and vibrant splashes of gaudy red. He could A: Try to camp somewhere along the road and likely wake up snug in the jaws of some hideous beast, or B: Find better prospects downstairs. As lovely as A sounded, B it was. 

Tugging the last few bits and pieces of loose silks into place, Jaskier drug the finicky garment over his head and gripped the waistband of his pants, giving them a firm tug back into their correct position - Not crawling halfway up his ass. “Not out of the game yet, Jaskier.” He promised himself assuredly, drawing in a slow breath and bringing his lute around to his front.

Decidedly not framing the long stretch of hall before him as a walk of shame, Jaskier strode down the expanse of doorways with his head held high and his mind carefully not dwelling on the silence that had settled over the building. The tavern below the inn had been rowdy and just a bit out of hand in all the right ways when he’d been on the prowl earlier; but now, in the sinking twilight of the evening just beginning to settle over the land, nothing rose from the stairwell at the end of the hall but a dim glow of candlelight. The deep purple of absolute quiet sunk it at every edge, soundless… songless. Nature was full of noise, even in the dead of night leaves high on the trees swept soulfully in the evening wind and their loyal branches creaked along in oaken harmony. But this place, wherever it may be - For Jaskier could not convince himself the silence broke outside the walls of the small innhouse - was all but quiet.

This worried him because he needed the tavern to still be open, Jaskier told himself. However, the words rung empty even in the privacy of his own mind. Even after all this time, he just wasn’t used to spending his nights (alone) indoors anymore.

Jaskier shook the thoughts away before they could fester in his mind any longer, now wasn’t the time for this. Actually, on that note, absolutely never was the time for this, thank you very much. Effectively shoving any such nonsense aside, he took to the stairs at the end of the hall and carried himself down into the tavern below not as a man who had just been kicked out of bed would, but as pridefully and confidentiality as he could muster, which was, as he had been told - quite loudly and often in fact - a lot. 

The room below was, unfortunately, far less populated than it had been a few hours ago. A dying fire simmering idly down into smoldering coals from an iron lined hearth cast its waning light across a few lone patrons still lingering in the dusk shadoded inn. Its fitful amber glow wrapped heavily around the stale, dust-clogged air of the empty tavern, catching in the gray specks of grime and hanging there captured in the tentative balance of night and day until it too would simmer out and darkness would overtake the hours. The dying light flickered sparingly across the old bartender’s weathered face as he glanced from behind his counter, his idle wiping of a glass coming to a momentary halt as he cast Jaskier a warning side-eye out from the shadowed ridge of his heavy brow. 

He was in dangerous risk of overstaying his welcome. The few coins that jingled hollowly against his waist with each step would be enough to get him halfway to an inn room - or at least buy him a drink and with it maybe a few hours more of the innkeeper’s pity, but it was a far shot. The mood didn’t seem right, everything far too quiet to dare break the spell with anything louder than a whisper - But he had always been skilled at doing the things he shouldn’t and there was only one real way someone with his absolute lack of workmanship could make money… So, there was only one option for him if he didn’t want to die cold and nameless on some backroad outside of town.

“A tune, anyone?” Jaskier chimed happily, shattering the quiet and strumming out a clear-attention grabbing note on his trusty lute. 

One guy startled at the sudden sound, jolting his drink straight up into his own face. A heavy sigh heaved from him as he lowered it back to the table and drug a calloused hand across his face, a disgruntled glower striking across his features as he flicked the excess liquid from his fingers. Besides that, there was no response.

Well, that had never stopped him before and it certainly wasn’t going to now! “You think you're safe, without a care, but here in Posada...” He began, pitching his voice a bit lower to try and bring the drama he wanted, to bring a certain gravity that would leave them waiting with bated breath for the next word. He swung a leg up on the nearest table, drawing a scowl from the bartender that he decidedly ignored in favor of leaning into his lyrics. “You’d be wise to beware! The pike with the spike that lurks in your drawers or the flying drake that will fill you with horror,” He continued jauntily, sinking into the familiar role as if it were an old suit. Warm, comforting, heartening. If he could just sing all the time he would never have to worry about the war outside or where he was going to sleep that night. Besides, he’d been working on the tune since it hadn’t gone over so well the last time he’d sung it. After all, the last time he’d sung it… ( _ No one else hesitated to comment on the quality of my performance except for-) _

His voice faltered. “Uh,” He stuttered out haplessly, the words stuck behind a lump in his throat he couldn’t quite seem to swallow. “Need Old Nan the Hag to stir up a potion,” He tried to rebound but it came out crooked in wrong, the pitch wavering on the wrong words and the tune lost from his fingertips as they locked across the cords. “So that your lady might get an abortion!” He forced out, pushing the intrusive thoughts away and plucking on through the song with his teeth gritted around the words.

“Hey!” One of the few lingering patrons called out from across the room, the guy who’d accidentally taken a dive in his drink earlier; there was still a bit of foam caught in the bristling hairs of a poorly groomed mustache adorning his upper lip. The word dripped with the slur of too much alcohol, dragging crookedly from the man’s tongue like it didn’t know quite where to go and his gaze didn’t fall quite on Jaskier so much as just to the left of him. 

Hey was not a very informative comment, nor was it any form of cash endorsement, but Jaskier paused nevertheless, his fingers slowing to an absent halt across the familiar cords as he steadied himself and drug his unobedient mind back on course. “Yes?” He questioned impatiently, fingers tapping along the strings of lute in antsy tantamount to bring little ringing notes into existence only to cut them into silence before they had a chance to grow as his restless digits pressed down on a new string.

“Aren’t you,” He paused, furrowing his brow as if the words were lost somewhere up there and he could perhaps squeeze them out if he scoured hard enough. “You’re that guy, that sings that song.” The man elaborated eloquently, gesturing vaguely as if waving his hand through the air would somehow illustrate his point. The motion was slow and unthought out, his fingers flying through the air faster than the rest of his hand could keep up with them so his whole forearm slammed loudly down on the table. The impact sent the tankard of ale still sitting dangerously close to the edge of the table sloshing noisily, a few sprays of cheap foam spilling over the edge and dripping down the side of the cup in slow rivers, disjointed streams breaking over unseen crevices and coming together again in shallow pools at the base of the glass.

Jaskier nodded. He was, in fact, a guy. He did, in fact, sing songs. Everything was lining up so far.

“Let’s have it then!” The drunken patron cheered slurridly. “We want the song about the Witcher!” He finally managed to clarify, snorting through the simple sentence as if it were the funniest joke he’d ever heard. A supporting rabble made its way across the sparse crowd, a general murmur of agreement that hummed a bit of life back into the dead atmosphere as one or two other people glanced up from the last dregs of the drinks they’d been nursing to let their gaze fall on the bard.

Jaskier swallowed thickly, a sour feeling slinking through his guts and crawling up the back of his throat to tangle the words. “Ah, well-” He tried to dodge, shifting uncomfortably as he scrambled for some excuse and found none. This wasn’t the first time, not by a long shot. It seemed that every time he picked up his lute in a tavern, no matter what he did or what he sang, this is where he ended up; standing gawk-eyed in front of a crowd that wanted to hear that same stupid song no matter what else he had to offer them. 

“Yeah, we want to hear that one!” Someone seconded boisterously from the far corner of the tavern, their voice obnoxiously loud for this time of night and drowning out whatever quiet protest Jaskier fought to cling to. 

He smothered the urge to grimace as he retightened his grip on his lute and drew in a steadying breath. After all, the audience hated a frowning face. “Very well then.” He conceded, a bitter tone tainting his usually melodious tones, but there was only so much he could do to control that. He was built to give voice to his feelings, trained to let hatred and love alike spill from his lips. He was a faucet with no off handle.

“When a humble bard graced a ride along,” He began, the lyric miraculously steady, but his fingers gave him away. They shook over the familiar notes, leaving the accompanying chords crude and sharp as he plucked them too hard and too late. “With Ger-” He drug out but his voice caught uncooperatively on the name, refusing to budge an inch. He hadn’t realized how thick the air was until now, clogged with the charred ash of war and the stale dust of destitution that sat at the back of his tongue and filled his lungs with a fog so heavy it constricted his chest until he could barely breathe. It scratched at his throat and tangled with his voice until all he could produce was a choked wretch of a sound. 

“Uh, along came this song,” Jaskier grated out, decidedly skipping over that part before he suffocated on his own lyrics. 

The man who’d requested the song cocked his head a bit, like he could maybe pick up something was different but was too drunk to put his finger exactly on what. However, as if destiny had chosen today of all days to finally pass out blessings, the moment he opened his mouth to say something was exactly the moment the door of the tavern chose to crash open. The sound of wood slamming into wood, accompanied by the rush of the night’s chilled wind drew all eyes to the entryway as a group of travelers barged into the inn, their footsteps booming across the rickety floor boards that groaned dangerously under their weight. Snow flurries licked at their boots and skittered across the flooring in fitfull whisps as the group strolled through the doorway and slammed the thing shut behind them, the sound ringing in the quiet for only a moment before it was swallowed up by the sudden presence of life.

“Drinks for a questing group of adventures!” Their leader, a haggard bull of a man called jovially, his deep voice shattering through the softness of the waning twilight like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the quiet. His short hair was tousled with the weather and sticking up in odd places as mud caked the wayward strands, a single twig sticking valiantly through the tangled mess. Jaskier wondered if he knew it was there or if, perhaps, he’d mind so if he went to pluck it out for him.

The innkeeper sighed defeatedly, placing that poor cup he’d been working on for the last five minutes down and shuffling around under the counter for new mugs as the low roar of the leader’s companions filled the room. Noise and laughter took over where there had moments ago been silence, a constant hum of boisterous conversation suddenly striking up as the man who’d spoken pulled a chair roughly out from under a table and his group filled in alongside him, the ear-piercing shriek of stools being drug across the floor a somehow welcome break from the silence. A woman with hair cropped down to nothing more than shorn bristles laughed at something a short-statured man with a mustache curled up at the ends had said and thumped her hand into his back so hard his face hit the table, which only seemed to make her laugh louder, a cracking high sound that matched her as well as a set of doberman fangs might match a chihuahua.

Jaskier took the moment of distraction as an opportunity to slip away, thankful for any reason not to finish the song. However, he didn’t retreat much farther than that, instead turning to make his way across the room with the suddenly social table dead in his sights. He kept his steps slow and carefully measured, letting his eyes fall just a touch narrowed as his award winning (if he did say so himself - And he did) smile spread across his face. Finally, Jaskier drew to a halt a pace away from where the leader currently had his boots thrown up on the table, mud flaking away from the tarnished soles in boorish chunks. The guy glanced up as the bard approached, but made little move to do much more than that, his dark eyes tracking the newcomer’s movements with vague interest as his heavy fingers strummed absently atop the table.

“You’re an adventurer?” Jaskier asked interestedly, though how anyone in the bar could've missed that fact was beyond him. He drew his lute up as he spoke, a sort of unconscious introduction, similar to one bowing when they said their name. 

“Aye, the best of ‘em.” The man agreed easily, a cocky smile sliding across his face as he tossed his hand in a vague gesture. “Who’s askin’?” He added, raising a heavy eyebrow as he drew his feet down to lean an elbow on the table instead. His body towered over the corner of the bench, imposing in the way he seemed to crowd the entire space just by existing in it.

“A bard looking for a group of adventures to travel with, as a matter of fact.” Jaskier offered, bracing a palm into the edge of the table and leaning in a bit closer than may have been particularly wise. Then again, when had he ever done anything particularly wise?

“Hey, wait,” The guy paused, holding up a finger as a thoughtful look crowded his brusk features. “I feel like I know you.” He elaborated, brows knitting together as he narrowed his eyes at the bard and tapped a finger pointedly against the table, short, striking jabs that echoed through the dense wood.

“I don’t believe we’ve ever met.” Jaskier argued as the guy leaned back in his seat with an unconvinced hum. A moment passed where Jaskier felt opportunity slipping like grains of sand caught on the wind between his fingers before the leader of the troop suddenly snapped his fingers, sitting back up right with jolt.

“Ain’t you that kid who made the Butcher of Blaviken famous?” He asked with more than a touch of interest, the words sending a slosh of nausea crashing over Jaskier.

“In the flesh.” The bard pressed between gritted teeth and did what he could to keep the sigh that sat heavily inside him caged in his chest. He was exhausted, tired of constantly wrestling with himself and trying to reign in his wayward thoughts to little avail. Everytime the Witcher was mentioned, even in passing, he wanted to puke. It was ridiculous. 

“Hm,” The guy commented and leaned in a touch closer, a sharp smile that reminded Jaskier more of a snarl than anything else painting his face. “Can you make me famous?” He asked, voice low.

“I can do my damndest.” Jaskier agreed. 

* * *

_ There was something about men _ , Jaskier thought as his back hit the wall.  _ Something about letting yourself go, a freedom in it. Surely, his muse would reawaken, his passions reignite... _ It’s about the last clear thought he had before hands crawled up his chest, his lips were parted in a kiss too rough to be comfortable, and his thoughts were silenced. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone who left me such awesome comments ~ I really appreciate the encouragement :)


	3. Flowers and Fairy Tales

Queen Calanthe had always hated fairy tales, Ciri remembered.

“Rubbish.” She had muttered to Ciri, running a brush a little too roughly through long locks of blond hair. “Stories my child, nothing more.” The queen had ushered the thoughts from her granddaughter's head before they ever had the chance to settle. “Do not give way to those empty dreams of faraway lands where war does not touch the green of the grass and happy endings are a guarantee.” She’d instructed softly and her voice was soft with affection but as unyielding as if she were calling out orders in the clash of battle, a low hymn of years of belief, calmed and unquestioned in her words.

“Are not tales of wars fought and battles won stories?” Ciri remembered questioning in the warm air, sun-basked words ripe with curiosity and sharp against the quiet stillness of the early morning seeping in from the windows. Dawnlight still yet crept across the oaken floorboards, pooling across the seams of wood and inching ever closer to where she sat in front of a mirror on the far side of the room. She watched her grandmother’s eyes roll in the reflection before her, always a little irritated when questions refused to stop spilling from her granddaughter's mouth, but there was little heat behind the expression and when her gaze caught Ciri’s in the mirror it was fond.

“No, those are accounts.” She corrected flatly, lips a straight line set hard on her face. “True to life, factual accounts.” She elaborated, her hands stilling as the brush caught on a knot and Ciri grimaced, huffing out a quiet noise of disapproval. “Sorry, sorry.” Calanthe hushed, sweeping the momentary flash of discomfort from Ciri’s mind as she let herself relax once more and the queen set to undoing the tangle by hand. “Poets and bards tell of fairy tales, embellishment of the truth their trade. Do not let their lace-trimmed ballads be confused with accounts of war.” Calanthe clarified, calloused fingers made hard by years of swinging a sword picking at the knot a little too roughly to be considered completely painless. 

Ciri did her best not to grimace, gritting her teeth behind her lips. She said nothing more, knowing her grandmother was all too set in her ways to be swayed by an endless stream of questions, but that dawnlight sepia would turn to a sunset bath of rose before she would toss Calanthe’s words to the wind. 

“Read me another.” Ciri would ask into the waning twilight, the soft swatches of evening stealing the sky and painting the room in the dilute lavender of the approaching dusk. Her voice was naught but an excited whisper, sharp but quiet lest her grandmother hear, as if she were certain Calanthe had the ears of a lion rather than just the namesake of one. 

“Oh, fine.” Eist finally conceded with a defeated sigh, huffing dramatically though she’d barely begun to convince him. “Just one more though. It’s late.” He warned, drawing the book he’d just begun to close back open once more. The cracking smile breaking across his face assured her she could drag another tale or so from him yet. 

Eist had always loved fairy tales, Ciri remembered. 

He’d sneak her books he’d brought back from the lands he’d marched his armies to, coveted secrets of old paper and gold gilded lettering across bound leather. Wondrous tales they’d contained, full of beasts too fantastical to believe and tales of destiny winding its way through the lives of people in ways she could have never imagined. Dragons and knights, good triumphing over evil,  _ true love. _

The last, Ciri remembered, had always fascinated her.

Two people, bound together, pivoting one another in the claws of life and yet always finding their way to each other in the end. The tales of heart-pounding devotion and too-good-to-be-true romance. Destiny, at the heart of it all, threading a string unbreakable by beast or by blade between her characters and drawing them ever closer despite what war may wage. Untouched by  _ war.  _ What could overcome war? True love! - True love and destiny! Gods, she’d adored those stupid stories.

Happy endings, guaranteed.

“It’s barely past dark,” Ciri remembered arguing almost every night to the chastising tut of the king, his finger shaking scoldingly over the top of the book as he began to flip through it. His hands moved slowly, lingering at the crest of every turn of a page for a moment before decidedly flicking on to the next. The soft flutter of paper falling over paper the only sound in the room save for the soft scrape of chairs being moved somewhere on a floor beneath them and the hushed sound of voices, their words lost to the walls of the castle. Still, you could hear them, muffled though they were; the staff moving about, royal visitors from afar chuckling at the bad joke of a dignitary they wanted to win to their cause, life existing all around them. Life was not silent, could never be silent. 

“One more, I mean it.” Eist insisted. He did not mean it, they both knew. He never meant it.

“Fine, one more.” Ciri agreed for the time being, scooching forward a bit where she sat atop her bed, too awake to settle in and lie down just yet.

He would open the book and paint stories with his words, create worlds from the pages and breathe life into people who had never drawn a breath themselves. The characters and their tales broke free of the leather bindings that confined them, spilling out into the world beyond on the wings of Ciri’s imagination to take shape in the twilight shadows, and she would find herself leaning forward, captivated. Her elbows on her knees and her eyes locked to her grandfather as she scooted to the edge of the bed and tried to remember that she could only go so far without falling off the mattress.

After Nilfgaard attacked, she’d spent the lonesome nights in the wild whispering the familiar tales to herself in the black of night, filling the silence until fitful sleep claimed her. Familiar stories whispered over and over again like a prayer. Still, she dreamed not of valiant knights and poison apples as she once had when those stories lulled her to rest, but of Cintra burning. 

Now the once memorized tales began to slip from her mind, their endings lost as she thought less and less of them in the war bleakened times. Ashen cities crumbling in the grip of war consumed her every waking thought as she trekked through the battle-torn remnants of fallen kingdoms and slipped through the blood-muddied streets of villages left tarnished in the wake of Nilfgaard’s insatiable armies. It continued like this for months, years maybe, as one ruined town after another bled together and time seemed to slip between her fingers unnoticed.

They did not - Could not - cross her mind, until all at once, they did.

It wasn’t even anything in particular. No, it was the hours spent walking with not a word between them. It was the nights when the crackle of the fire seemed to almost chase a melody it couldn’t quite grasp until it burned out to wordless ashes. It was the way that as she spent more and more time with the Witcher she thought Geralt’s constant glower looked a little less like “blank” and a little more like “sad.”

The sky had sunk into a lake of twilight ivory when Geralt drew them to a halt, not slowing and then coming to a stop as a normal person might, but going from moving to not all in one moment from another. Ciri nearly plowed into him, barely stopping herself from tripping over her own feet as she lurched to a sudden, flailing halt.

“There’s a stream nearby. We’ll stop here.” The Witcher informed as if it wasn’t already clearly evident they were stopping, the fact that Ciri had nearly eaten his armor testament to that.

“Thank the gods.” She puffed gratefully, all but tossing herself on the forest floor the moment she had the okay. She knew they needed to keep moving, too risky to linger one place for too long or to lag in their travels, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. The Witcher’s pace was relentless and though his mare was a gentler ride than she’d anticipated, one could only take bouncing atop the hard back of a working horse for so long. Trying to balance the literal pain in her ass against the strain in her legs was no easy feat (No pun intended.)

She flopped to the brushy weeds underfoot, softened grass nursed into some semblance of life by the nearby stream against the ashen grays of the woods around them. The dry wind whipped across the color-touched blades, leaving them stiff and coarse under her back, tiny needles pricking through her cloak to scratch at her skin as they fought to survive in the harsh grip of their home. Still, they were better than the charred wisps of dead grass that littered the rest of the woods, beaten into dirt paths until the entire forest floor was the same mottled brown, lifeless and tarnished.

Ciri took in her surroundings idly as Geralt went about his usual stalking, pacing about the perimeter of their camp in an ever-expanding patrol until he returned to begin unpacking. The world was blurred with the creeping night, swashes of shadows blending together to form what resembled more of a false backdrop than any actual reality. A surreal bleeding of sky and soil, where the treetops became the clouds as it grew too dark to draw the line between them, the shadows hanging in the air and the shadows climbing to meet them lost to each other in the indistinct twilight. The colors of this world were no longer quite as distinct as they had once been as if the vibrancy of the world had been sucked from it to leave naught but the withered remnants of their muted reflections behind.

_ Really should get up and help him, _ Ciri thought, albeit a little reluctantly and pressed the palms of her hands into the jagged weeds to push herself up, the angry prick of dried grass digging into her skin as it smushed pathetically under her weight. She ached in places she never even knew existed, her body fighting her every step of the way as she tried to coax it back into action until she was certain her legs may very well actually fall off. However, just as she was about to crawl to her feet, something caught her attention; a sharp splash of color against the bleak wash-water of the world around them that drew her gaze and held it captive. 

A flower. Or… maybe that wasn’t the best description. After all, you could easily argue it was a weed and nothing more, but that’s not what Ciri thought when she saw it. A dandelion, a blazing yellow splotch of color crawling up between the struggling blades of grass, violently bright against the shaded grays of the forest floor and screaming for attention with its mere existence. It wasn’t well off, as water-starved as the rest of the grass fighting for life around it and the edges of its thin petals curled up at the ends, brown and withering before they’d even fully spread, but still it shone. Its sunshine brightness looked almost fake amongst the dying weeds that curled up and choked at it vengefully as if they were furious with it for wasting such limited resources with flashiness. 

And something had trounced it. Ciri noted this dismally and, for some reason, it made her feel far worse than she knew it should. Some wayward beast or something like that surely, no sane being would wander this far into the wilderness, let alone come all this way to squish a flower (Because it  _ was _ a flower.) The stem was bent at a twisted angle, a small crack in its brittle hull bleeding white at the edges, and the fragile remnants of small petals stuck up in unnatural directions. Yet, there was still life to it, clinging valiantly to every bent petal and wayward leaf. 

Ciri paused, momentarily forgetting her self-imposed obligation to not sit there like a log while Geralt did all the work, and reached for the plant. Her fingers swept lightly over the crooked petals, giving under her fingertips and juxtaposed to the sharp pinprick of the weathered weeds digging into the palm of her other hand still pressed to the forest floor. Gently, she guided the stem back upright, encouraging it to stand once more as she kept her hand in place a moment before slowly drawing back. It stood for a second, then wavered on a breeze, bowing under the barely-there hiss of the late winter wind as it growled its warning over the riverbank, a promise, a threat, a challenge. However, the low howl died to the silence soon once more and as it did, the dandelion was seen to stand still in its uneasy wake.

Ciri sat back on her heels, pleased with herself and in a way, pleased with the plant itself just for existing. It sat there, blazing yellow against the withered land taken for all it was worth and it seemed to say fuck the cold. Fuck the gray. Fuck the war and fuck Nilfgaard for starting it. Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it all and we don’t have to stand for it. Maybe she was projecting, but she grinned down at the stupid little weed that she refused to see as anything but a flower and pushed herself up with a renewed vigor. 

To her, it was proof that there would be a tomorrow. 

So caught up in the joy of it, Ciri almost missed what she would later say was the moment she knew. As she turned to help Geralt finish setting up the camp, however, feeling as if she could throw the whole tent up herself in a matter of seconds, she saw what she did not understand at the moment. Geralt’s eyes were trained on the wilting dandelion, a brief glance that was snapped back to the job at hand before she’d even registered it. 

Ciri stood where she was for a time, unsure if she’d really caught the look or if it was just some passing figment of her imagination tricked by the twilight and the exhaustion creeping it at the corners of her mind. She had, after all, just been certain a plant was declaring fuck all on all of Nilfgaard. But no… She had seen it. She was sure of that. 

She didn’t understand then, but she began to. 

Geralt had already begun busying himself with slamming the corner peg of the tent down with a blunt rock as if archaic brutality against a stub of wood would erase whatever civilized emotion he’d let cross him. Effectively burying the splintering stake as quick as his feelings, he stepped back from the ratty canvas and set to gathering the stuff for a fire, a plethora of dry if not a little scampy branches broken from the ends of their trees scattered about the area. 

Ciri shook off the odd moment, for the time being, content to focus on helping Geralt build up the fire and still not certain enough that it had meant anything at all to dwell on the matter. She swiped at the dust clinging to her pants, only really succeeding in getting more dirt from her hands on the cloth than she’d gotten off of it, grimy streaks staining the once fine material. Not that you could tell. The crumbling filth blended with every muddied smudge and blood-lined rip tarnishing the fabric, just another stain of her travels she would never be able to wash out.

Realizing her efforts were in vain, Ciri stopped smearing more dust on her already ruined clothes before she could make things any worse and set herself instead to collecting bits of twig and dry leaves from the floor, nothing that would keep the fire going, but good kindling. She filled her arms with the odds and ends before dumping them over the couple of logs Geralt had lugged to the center of camp, a meager offering but it was better than nothing, she supposed. Maybe they were closer to a town than she realized, needing to keep the flame low lest they attract unwanted attention.

“Igni.” Geralt hummed out in a low voice from across the pile of wood and the branches caught, blazing to life under his gaze. The flames licked at the ever-darkening sky, a slow plume of smoke climbing up from the campsite and dissipating into the cold night air before it ever even crested the trees. 

Ciri considered settling opposite the Witcher, the soft light radiating out from the flames as much of a draw as the warmth flooding out from the crackling embers, but more than she was cold, she was tired. So rather she merely stood overtop of the fire for a moment, hands held out in front of her. The firelight bleached her skin a warm yellow, bathing her in its cascading warmth until the chill that had settled in the deepest hollows of her bones slowly began to retreat. The warmth bled into her veins, flooding through her skin and into the empty cold beyond until the wind-whipped chill was chased away by the sunlight sepia of the fire that settled into her chest and spread from there.

As soon as she was sure she would not lose her fingers to frostbite, Ciri retreated for the tent. Parting the canvas flaps, she almost dove for her bedroll, grabbing her (notably larger - Though she was not going to complain) pile of furs and dragging them over herself to keep the warmth she’d gathered from being stolen away by the night air. She pulled one over her head, snuggling happily down into the plush nest of blankets and wondering if there was really any reason for her to ever crawl out of them again. Surely, nothing could be worth giving this up for. 

Exhaustion was quick to pounce, her tired body succumbing to the siren call of sleep before her head had even hit the pillow. Every tired muscle sent forth a cry of relief, culminating in a quiet sigh breathed through a tiny gap in her blanket-cocoon as the weights that were evidently attached to her eyelids made themselves known, announcing curtain-call on her vision as easy blackness swept all else to naught. Against her better judgment, she blinked her eyes open once more, however, curiosity always had been her way. Though what had peaked it that evening, she couldn’t quite say for sure, but she could almost swear she heard the tell-tale heave of a sigh from beyond the flaps of the tent. 

Ciri blinked, her vision blurred with the gaussian-brush of sleep and left the picture before her skewed. Firelight bled to become nothing more than an orange smudge against the velvet backdrop of the evening and its light washed across the indistinct splattering of colors she assumed to be her travel companion, though the only thing she could really make out was the steel glint of his sword as he sat sharpening the blade. His hands moved as if they were pulled by puppet strings, no reason behind their well-practiced march, and his eyes were not on his work, but on the fire. Yet, even that seemed not an apt description, for his gaze did not seem to fall to the flame but rather went through it. 

The Witcher’s most faithful companion, his mare, stood behind him, but as Ciri watched the scene unfold, the horse bent down to knock her snout gently into the back of Geralt’s head. A soft, almost scolding gesture accompanied by a snort of annoyed air Ciri could hear from the tent.

“I know, Roach.” Geralt shot back, but there was little bite to the words as he shoved the beast’s head away lightly. Ah! So Ciri hadn’t imagined it when she swore she’d heard Geralt whispering to his horse before.

Roach, evidently, remained unconvinced. Her snout knocked into the back of Geralt’s head a good piece harder this time, sending him falling forward a bit as if he hadn't expected a retaliation. The Witcher caught himself, silver hair falling in his face as his neck snapped forward, mud clumped strands moving stiffly and catching on blunt nails as he swept it back into place and whipped around to glare at the mare.

All she had to offer when he turned to glare at her was an indignant shake of her mane. Somehow, it clearly seemed to say,  _ Don’t look at me. I’m not the idiot here  _ and Ciri wondered if she too may start talking to horses. They had to be more communicative travel companions than Geralt, the White Wolf of Brooding.

Clearly receiving no sympathy there, Geralt relented and turned back around to face the fire, returning to his previous expedition of sharpening his sword into nothing. Silence swamped the small campsite once more, the quiet crackle of dying embers the only sound that reached Ciri where she lay, caught on a breeze that held not the strength to ruffle the trees around them nor sway the grass underfoot. It was unnatural, the quiet. 

The firelight flickered across the Witcher’s stony countenance, casting deep shadows in the hallows of his cheeks and making well known the harshness of his carved features as they set in that ever-present glower. However, as Ciri looked at him, she couldn’t help but think the furrow of his brow seemed ever so slightly more strained than normal, and that, perhaps, his amber eyes, nearly glowing in the muted light, held a touch of… _ something.  _ Sadness? Guilt? Regret? Loneliness even? She could not name it - but she understood.

Geralt of Rivia was in love.

And every fairytale she’d forgotten came rushing back to her.

**Author's Note:**

> Haha... I uploaded this on the first day of classes to make myself feel better because starting a new fic at the same time as a new semester is a good decision.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always greatly appreciated! :)


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